A New Republic
by ZombieReader74
Summary: The President of the Arabian Republic meets with the Reporter to talk about his country's actions during the War.


A New Republic

 **Mecca, The Republic of Arabia:**

(Muhammad ali ibn Saud, President of the Republic, graciously agreed to a meeting here in Mecca. It was a hot day in Mecca as throngs of people prepared for completing their pilgrimages to the most holiest of cities in Islam. They prepared for their days of prayer at the Kaaba. I met the President on his Hajj after a day of prayer at a local cafe. He has allowed me, a non-Muslim entrance into the city. It was a rare honor. )

 **May I again thank you so much for allowing this interview. Especially here, in the holiest of cities.**

Ah, it's nothing. The world needs to finally know why we did what we did.

 **Ah yes, the burning of your oil wells.**

Yes, that. ( _He looks at the ground nervously_ )

 **...So, why did you do it?**

Well you must first know how the Plague infected our nation. We had no real...geographical advantages like other nations. We were surrounded on all sides by land or easily traversable seas. We had to resort to extreme measures to assure our safety.

 **And that led to the Unification?**

Yes. We needed to be able to patrol the entire coast and while our Navy was more than capable, the King wanted to be extra sure and have Internal Security patrol the coasts also. Well, Abu Dhabi, Oman, Yemen and Bahrain did not agree to our forces within their borders. They resisted so we simply did what had to be done.

 **You overran them. Complete annexation and absorption into your nation.**

Of course. If the US absolutely needed Aztlan and Canada absorbed to keep their people safe, I have no doubt your nation would have done it to its neighbors.

 **Its what you did after that had people concerned.**

What? Oh, you must be talking about the _lahifz alssalam_. As the name suggests it was just us keeping peace within our nation. It was going to tear itself apart and civil war would further worsen the situation.

 **How was the Zack infestation in Saudi Arabia?**

I was getting to that. It was not too bad in the beginning. Maybe a coastal town here and there or a town on the northern border being overrun. It was nothing a quick response by our brave military couldn't handle.

 **But even that was not enough.**

In the beginning it was, but as the condition in Egypt, the rest of the Middle East and Persia worsened it put more pressure on our guys. Eventually they were stretched too thin, the center could not hold so to speak. That is when the alqaraf really hit the fan. They poured in from almost all directions and we simply could not fight them. Mecca was the first major city to fall; and it happened during the Hajj to. We thought we could push them into the sea in the Hijaz Mountains. We thought wrong and realized it all too late. So many people lost in those mountains. We had no time to recover when they descended upon Mecca. It was a feeding frenzy. We evacuated as many as we could, almost 500,000 in fact, but we couldn't get everybody. It was a major embarrassment for my father, one he always kicked himself about. After that the horde dispersed into the Arabian desert.

 **Did you chase after them? Try to track them at all?**

We couldn't. We were already having hordes from Persia and Iraq bore down on us so they had to take a backburner. We fought them whenever we could ( _a waiter brings the President a glass of water_ ) Shukraan. We fought them at any time we thought we had the advantage. We won some and lost some, but we could never really stop them. My father and his generals came up with a disastrous solution, the River of Fire.

 **River of Fire?**

It was the codename for the burning of the oil wells. My father and generals were desperate to protect Riyadh at all costs. So, they bombed entire oil fields as part the plan with hellish results.

 **I interviewed some soldiers a while back who were there. They said it looked like a sea of fire.**

I know. I read the reports. Thing was though that those undead survived! It caught my dad and his generals completely off guard. My father in particular was stunned by this as it was a death warrant for his nation. He just destroyed Saudi Arabia's main source of income. Even if Saudi Arabia survived the War it would be bankrupt. He was shaken to the core. He became more reserved after the failure of the River of Fire. He retreated inward and internalized his distraught feelings; that is what made him reckless. He didn't know how to cope so he began to make more flagrantly horrible tactical decisions as a way to vent his anger out on the Z's. It got many killed and almost cost Arabia the War.

 **May I interrupt you? We touched on the** _ **lahifz alssalam**_ **policy of your father. What exactly was it?**

Well my father wanted to keep his attention focused on the war, so he turned Arabia into a police state. Nobody was unwatched outside of their home, and the local garrison frequently checked up on anybody for infection. If you were suspected and found to be infected you were shot on the spot. Any and all crimes were also made punishable by death. Everything from petty theft to jaywalking, if caught you could be killed. It was barbaric, but it was what we thought we needed to do to survive.

 **And nobody liked the policy.**

Exactly.

 **And that is what led to the May 10th Movement?**

That and some pre-war factors. This had been building up for decades before the War began.

 **What sparked the May 10th Revolution?**

My father ordered an Army battalion to eradicate a horde almost 10x their size. The battalion revolted when the order came and...well things spun quickly out of even the Revolutionaries leaders control.

 **Can you tell me about the Pillaging of Riyadh?**

Well, after a week of small skirmishes across the country the Revolutionaries had finally gotten the strategic upper hand and attacked Riyadh itself. My father was long gone into insanity at this point. Pushed beyond his breaking point by the twin stresses of the zombie apocalypse and revolution. He began to talk nonsense and called on Allah to intervene. Well he did, and it was not on our side. A Revolutionary squadron captured a radio station that moment and began to broadcast pleas for peace from the families of those still fighting for the King. The tide turned and the soldiers went crazy. The city was pillaged for all it was worth for almost a month. The castle itself was spared due to the valiant defense by SANG forces still loyal to the King. It was inspiring. The disorganized bands of Revolutionaries would attempt a breakthrough, only for SANG machine guns to cut them to pieces. They would then move onto an easier target. Finally, after a month of lawlessness order was restored to the Revolutionaries and they launched a coordinated and concentrated attack. The SANG defense was holding, but wouldn't, couldn't hold forever. My family and I were evacuated by helicopter. My father stayed behind to lead his men in battle. I remember his last words to me "Take care of your mother, Goodbye son". It was the last time I saw him. From what I hear the SANG perimeter collapsed after 3 hours of heavy fighting and then another hour or so of hand to hand fighting erupted. My father's face was smashed with a hammer. His body was violated and hung from a flagpole. It was gruesome end to a man who did what he thought was best...most of the time.

 **What happened after that?**

My family and I fled to the island of Socotra off the Arabian and Somali coast. We stayed the rest of the war there.

 **What about on the war front?**

I followed news close. After the fall of Riyadh a military junta took power for a time and they led the army to a few victories. They were eventually peacefully deposed in a bloodless revolution after month or so of their rule. The new President then led his new Republic to one of its greatest victories. The Battle of Harad.

 **Tell me about Harad.**

Well, the Horde from Mecca had more or less reorganized itself and was inching its way north to Harad. If Harad fell, the generals realized, Riyadh won't be far behind and that cannot happen. They then reasoned to stand or die at Harad. The Army prepared for almost a week, sandbagging houses and creating sniper nests, bombing zones for our planes, supply depots for our men. We knew they were going to come in from the South, but we had a fair amount of citizen soldiers patrolling the other directions just in case of some other horde we didn't know about. Late on the night of [date expunged] the first members of the hordes approached. They were dispatched easily. Then came the real meat of the horde, tens, maybe hundreds of thousands, strong. Our men had been training and had legions of combat experience so we began the all out assault. We had special artillery shells that were like buckshot, raining heated metal (and explosive) balls onto the horde. With the planes bombing, hovering helicopters unleashing .50 hot lead death and our men as a support role it was going good. Our citizen soldiers had kept the supplies flowing and things were going good. Then, well then it didn't. A massive sandstorm suddenly hit the city. This was in the middle of a…(in a lower voice) a goddam battle. It was said you couldn't see 2 m ahead in any direction. However that was an exaggeration, but not by much. The air support and artillery rain was stopped. Our guys's kill zone was pulled closer, only a couple of meters.

However, they still held their ground! The Horde was stopped singlehandedly at Harad and as the sun rose into the morning sky, thousands of Z's lay dead with only a few casualties on our side (the Republic released their count, they had one casualty. A man broke his arm swinging a sword.). It was a serious morale booster for our guys. We went on to win our war easily after that, with the skillful President at the head of the charge, so to speak.

 **When the War was over how did the Republic survive? With its oil up in flames it had lost its main source of revenue.**

The first few months after the war was chaos for our Republic. It was ruined with most of its major cities in ruins. Abu Dhabi was buried by a large sandstorm, the Yemeni provinces were tearing themselves apart due to religious and ethnic violence, the Omani provinces rose in revolt, and to top it off our militarized populace demanded an invasion of the heathens in the Middle East, mostly of Israel. Our President refused and paid the highest price for his courage. He was assassinated by a xenophobic and expansionist sect of the military for cutting back on the budget and forming a friendship with the neighboring nations. I watched on TV when his black limo exploded. The news played it almost non-stop for a few weeks as the political system of the Republic began to unravel. It seemed the Unification was done for.

 **That's when you stepped in and took control?**

I was elected. There was a snap election and I won 65% of the vote, so I was sworn in as President of a failing Republic.

 **How did you make it work?**

I took total control for the first few months, ruling by decree. Many pointed this as the first step in a return to the Saudi monarchy. I never even had the idea cross my mind. I had the Army settle the Yemeni and Omani conflicts with extreme prejudice. I had Abu Dhabi's populace resettled across the Republic. I did what was needed. When things calmed down I returned power back to the Parliament and resumed my rule as a democratic ruler. I easily won the last elections and I will win the next ones, assuming nothing happens of course.

 **What about accusations that your government is hiding captured Z's for experimentation into weaponization? Care to comment?**

(His eyes narrow and his smile falls into a deep frown) This interview is over.


End file.
